Momma (Mother) in Black Girl, Call Home: Faith, Control, and Unspoken Love
Overview
In Jasmine Mans’ Black Girl, Call Home, the figure of Momma—the speaker’s mother—emerges as a complex, often contradictory presence. She is a woman of deep faith, fierce control, unspoken sacrifice, and painful prejudice. Through a series of lyric poems and prose fragments, Mans builds a portrait of a mother whose love is expressed in actions rather than words, whose prayers are monologues, and whose expectations clash with her daughter’s emerging identity. This analysis traces Momma’s role, motivations, relationships, and thematic significance, grounding each claim in evidence from the text while distinguishing between explicit facts and interpretive readings.
Plot Role and Presence
Momma does not drive a linear plot; Black Girl, Call Home is a poetry collection, not a narrative novel. Instead, she appears in scattered poems that together create a mosaic. Her presence is felt most acutely in domestic settings: the kitchen where she prays and rants, the kitchen table where she utters slurs, the salon chair in the kitchen where she tends hair. The poems “Momma Has a Hair Salon in the Kitchen,” “Momma Said Dyke at the Kitchen Table,” and “Monologue: Mother Yells at (Insert Name of Black Girl Here)” place her at the center of the speaker’s childhood memory. In the prose chapter “We Host These Variables,” the speaker reflects on the silent ceremony and the “distance between mother and daughter,” positioning Momma as both a physical caretaker and an emotional mystery. Her role is that of a shaper—through discipline, care, and hurt—whose influence the speaker must reckon with on the path to self-acceptance.
Motivations and Traits
Momma’s primary motivation appears to be protection and preparation, filtered through her own understanding of the world. The poem “Treat Her Right, While She’s Still Here” reveals that before knowing her daughter is a lesbian, Momma “prepared me / to be a man’s wife.” This suggests a desire to equip her daughter for what she assumes is a safe, conventional life. Her faith is a central trait: in “Momma Has a Hair Salon in the Kitchen,” she prays “like she’s talking over God, / and if God were to talk back / she wouldn’t even hear Him.” Explicit fact: the poem shows her praying in a one-sided, controlling manner. Interpretation: This indicates a faith that is less about listening than about asserting her will. Momma is also clearly controlling—the same poem merges domestic spaces (hair salon, kitchen) to show how her care and dominance overlap.
Another trait is prejudice. “Momma Said Dyke at the Kitchen Table” explicitly shows her using a homophobic slur. The chapter title alone is evidence. This reveals a mother whose views clash with her daughter’s sexuality, creating a wound that the collection explores. Yet Momma is also capable of silent, profound love. In “That Was Her Way of Showing God,” the speaker recalls that her mother expressed divinity through everyday gestures—without explicit praise or words. Interpretation: Momma’s love is embodied, not verbalized. She shows rather than tells, which complicates her harshness.
The prose chapter “We Host These Variables” offers a rare reflective moment where the speaker tries to honor “the silent ceremony between mother and daughter” and acknowledges that “we exist with a heavy and stubborn resemblance.” Momma is described as looking back with “girlish eyes, wanting to be remembered for something I do not recognize her as.” This suggests she harbors a self that her daughter cannot fully see—a motivation to be understood beyond her role as mother.
Chronological Arc
Because the collection is non-linear, Momma’s arc is thematic rather than chronological. Early poems (Chapters 2 and 3) establish her religious intensity and loving actions. Middle poems (Chapters 9, 10, 11, 86) introduce conflict: the speaker’s homosexuality, the mother’s homophobic outburst, the daughter’s retaliatory insult (“The First Time the Black Girl Calls Her Mother a Bitch”), and a theatrical monologue of maternal rage. Later reflections (Chapter 5, “We Host These Variables”) show the speaker attempting to understand her mother from a more mature perspective. The collection ends with acknowledgments where Mans thanks her parents (Chapter 119), implying eventual reconciliation or at least gratitude. The arc moves from idolization to conflict to a complex, unresolved understanding.
Relationships
Momma and the speaker: The central relationship is marked by tension and deep love. Momma prepares her daughter for a life she never lives; she speaks slurs but also shows God through acts. The speaker both rebels (calling her a bitch, rejecting heteronormative expectations) and seeks to know her (“Daughters have questions for their mothers, questions made up of no words”). The relationship is one of “many burned bridges, as well as, a wealth of brick and clay, ready to be made anew.” Explicit fact: The speaker acknowledges distance and resemblance. Interpretation: The mother-daughter bond is fractured but has potential for remaking.
Momma and faith: Momma’s relationship with God is performative and unidirectional. She talks over God, which the speaker sees as a flaw. Yet her faith also manifests as love—showing God through actions. This duality reflects the collection’s broader examination of inherited religion.
Momma and the speaker’s sexuality: Based on chapters 9 and 10, Momma’s reaction to her daughter’s lesbian identity is negative. She prepares her for a man, and later uses a homophobic slur. The speaker’s identity is a point of rupture.
Key Decisions and Consequences
Momma’s decision to raise her daughter with strict expectations—both in appearance (the opening chapter about hair) and behavior—creates a child who must reclaim her own body and choices. The chapter “I Ain’t Gon’ Be Bald-Headed No More” shows the speaker rejecting a shorn or straightened style, a direct counter to her mother’s imposed conformity.
Her decision to express love through action rather than words (Chapter 3) leaves the speaker struggling to articulate her mother’s wholeness (“I have no words to describe her in wholeness”). The consequence is a lifelong attempt to translate silence into understanding.
Most painfully, Momma’s use of the word “dyke” at the kitchen table severs a part of their relationship. The consequence is the speaker’s need to find home and acceptance outside of her mother’s house—a theme that threads through the collection.
Theme and Symbol Connections
Faith and control: Momma’s prayer style symbolizes a need to control even the divine. It connects to the theme of identity and self-acceptance, as the speaker must separate her own faith from her mother’s.
The kitchen as domestic arena: The kitchen is where Momma prays, yells, does hair, and sits at the table. It symbolizes the site of both care and confrontation. This connects to home and belonging, as the speaker redefines home beyond her mother’s space.
Hair: The initial chapter and the salon poem tie hair to autonomy. Momma’s kitchen salon represents her role as caretaker, but also her desire to shape the speaker’s appearance. Rejecting that shaping is a step toward self.
Silence: The “silent ceremony” of Chapter 5 is a symbol of unspoken legacy. It relates to trauma and healing, as the speaker must find words for what was never said.
God shown: Momma’s love as an embodiment of the divine connects to black womanhood and resilience. Her strength is intertwined with her flaws.
For further exploration, see the mother-daughter relationship theme, the ending explained for closure nuances, and the questions and answers for deeper discussion.
Questions and Answers
1. What does Momma’s way of praying reveal about her character?
The poem “Momma Has a Hair Salon in the Kitchen” shows Momma praying as if talking over God. Explicitly, she would not hear Him if He replied. This reveals a need for control and a faith that is more about asserting her own voice than listening. Interpretation suggests a woman accustomed to being heard, even by the divine.
2. Why does Momma prepare her daughter to be a man’s wife before knowing she is a lesbian?
In “Treat Her Right, While She’s Still Here,” the speaker states that Momma prepared her for a conventional marriage. This is an explicit fact. The motivation, as inferred, is societal expectation and a desire to protect her daughter within a heteronormative world. It shows Momma’s limited vision of safety.
3. How does Momma express love without words?
According to “That Was Her Way of Showing God,” Momma demonstrates love through everyday acts of care. The poem’s refrain emphasizes showing rather than telling. This is an explicit theme. Her love is embodied: cooking, tending, providing—actions that serve as her language of devotion.
4. What is the significance of Momma’s use of the word “dyke” at the kitchen table?
The title “Momma Said Dyke at the Kitchen Table” presents an explicit event. The kitchen table, a site of family intimacy, becomes a place of wounding. The slur reveals Momma’s homophobia and creates a rupture that the speaker must process. It symbolizes the clash between maternal love and societal prejudice.
5. Does Momma ever fully understand or accept her daughter?
The collection does not provide a definitive scene of acceptance. However, the acknowledgments in “Brown Marks” thank the speaker’s parents, indicating ongoing relationship. The prose in “We Host These Variables” shows the speaker still searching for recognition: “she looks back at me, with girlish eyes, wanting to be remembered for something I do not recognize her as.” Interpretation: Momma remains partially unknown, but the act of writing is an attempt to bridge the gap. The ending explained suggests that healing may come through understanding rather than resolution.